Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/241

Rh was descended from the most noble and most ancient family of the Counts of Canossa; the mother being also a noble as well as excellent lady. Lodovico was that year Podesta, or Mayor of Chiusi-e -Caprese, near the Sasso della Vernia, where St. Francis received the Stigmata, and which is in the diocese of Arezzo. The child was born on a Sunday, the 6th of March namely, at eight of the night, and the name he received was Michelagnolo, because, without further consideration, and inspired by some influence from above, the father thought he perceived something celestial and divine in him beyond what is usual with mortals, as was indeed afterwards inferred from the constellations of his nativity, Mercury and Venus exhibiting a friendly aspect, and being in the second house of Jupiter, which proved that his works of art, whether as conceived in the spirit or performed by hand, would be admirable and stupendous.

His office, or Podesteria, having come to an end, Lodovico returned to Florence, or rather to the Villa of Settignano, about three miles from that city, where he had a farm which he had inherited from his ancestors. The place is rich in stone, more especially in quarries of the macigno, which are constantly worked by stone-cutters and sculptors, for the most part natives of the place, and here Michelagnolo was given to the wife of a stone-cutter to be nursed. Wherefore, jesting with Vasari one day, Michelagnolo once said, “Giorgio, if I have anything good in me, that comes from my birth in the pure air of your country of Arezzo, and perhaps also from the fact that with the milk of my nurse, I sucked in the chisels and hammers wherewith I make my figures.”

Lodovico had many children, and as he possessed but slender revenues, he placed his sons as they grew up with wool and silk weavers. When Michelagnolo had attained the proper age he was sent to the school of learning kept by Messer Francesco of Urbino; but the genius of the boy disposing him to drawing, he employed his leisure secretly in that occupation, although reproached for it, and sometimes beaten by his father and other elders, they, perhaps, not perceiving his ability, and considering the pursuit he had adopted an inferior one and unworthy of their ancient family.